


The Merest Breath of Circumstance

by LarkAscending, PhryneFicathon



Category: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Reference to Injury, Romance, War, first encounters, reference of domestic violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-15
Updated: 2018-02-15
Packaged: 2019-03-18 08:09:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13677702
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LarkAscending/pseuds/LarkAscending, https://archiveofourown.org/users/PhryneFicathon/pseuds/PhryneFicathon
Summary: Prompt: 'Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away!'A Five Times, one time fic. Five times in which Jack has a first encounter with Phryne in a changed set of circumstances. And one time he doesn't. Or, where I take my prompt very literally and write a set of moments for our Jack and Phryne.





	The Merest Breath of Circumstance

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Geenee27](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Geenee27/gifts).



**Melbourne 1909**

Jack had spent the day in competition with himself, on mile sprints and timed laps. He’d left the house at first light that morning; the sunrise had stained the horizon like the ripe flesh of a peach sliced to the stone.

Jack lifted his weight from the saddle and pushed down hard on his pedals. His legs, pumping like pistons, drove him faster towards the point in the distance he had fixed to serve as his next finish line. The landscape was fluid as it chased past his ears and he had no trouble imagining different shores; of his one day competing in the greatest bicycle race of them all.

The fading sun cast his shadow in an elongated stretch before him; he was his own undefeatable competitor.

“Watch it.”

She was a blur of dirty pinafore and sprinting limbs dashing past him. Swerving harshly, Jack narrowly avoided her and the second, taller figure in her pursuit. A policeman. So surprised by the spectacle – she was only a scrap of a thing, Jack found little time to be annoyed at having his lap time ruined. He watched as the two figures disappeared into a side street.

Stationary, Jack was able to take in his surroundings, realising where he was for the first time he was no longer surprised by what he’d seen; Collingwood was no place to remain an idle spectator. Fearing for the security of his bicycle, and not a small amount for himself, Jack was ready to concede that the days training should be brought to a close.

Turning the corner he was brought up short. The little thief had been caught and stood subdued before the policeman.

From his vantage point Jack could see that the girl held her hands in tight fists behind her back as the policeman, needing no physical force to restrain her, stood before his culprit, he stooped slightly to lessen his considerable height. Jack stopped a distance away intrigued by the interaction.

The girl, a little slip of a thing, was coaxed into relinquishing one of her hands from behind her back. Opening out her palm to the equable policeman’s request, Jack smiled as, haughtily, she held out an empty palm while keeping the other firmly hidden behind her back. She turned her nose up at the policeman as if vindicated of a false accusation.

Only when it became obvious to her that the Policeman would not be gullible to her simple confidence trick, did she acquiesce and open her other palm. With her hand outstretched and her chin resting on her chest, she looked the very picture of contrition. Jack couldn’t help but feel a little tug of sympathy for her.

Jack watched as, with the stolen item retrieved, the policeman took great care to look _it_ and the little culprit over. With the policeman’s attention distracted, Jack was surprised that the kid didn’t use the opportunity to scarper; instead she stood as if rooted to the spot, her eyes never leaving the coveted item.

After an indeterminate length of time, seemingly agitated with the stillness requested of her, the girl became animated, and for her captor, she began acting out some sort of pantomime. From the distance Jack stood, it looked like the staggering inebriation of his Uncle Bernard at last year’s Christmas party. The policeman too watched the spectacle with interest and seemed to be – wait, was he laughing?

She flinched only slightly when the policeman lifted her hand and placed the confiscated item back into her palm. With a subtle nod of his head, she was dismissed.

Needing no second invitation, she turned on her heels and ran only a short distance only to stop in her tracks. Turning on the spot, she blew the policeman a kiss before continuing in her getaway.

He was prepared to let her keep it, if it meant that much to her.

***

**France 1916**

He woke to a sonorous renting of the air.

His body, so attuned to the flight engendered by his time at the front, lay unmoving upon the cold earth.

He remembered the whistle, the rush over the top, the blind panic of the men around him as they zigzagged through concentrated fire. There had been a white flare of light before him and then, dark, a deeper dark than the night sky.

His breath was opaque in the cold night air and rose skyward as incendiaries, decreasing in their frequency now, continued to illuminate the darkness. In sporadic bursts they doused the stars from the sky and when spent, the discordant blast screamed its reply.

Jack grasped at the clotted mud beneath his fingers. He hurt all over but he’d heard that that was a good sign. He would not be borne away in the comfort of palsy. Tentatively, he turned his face and saw that he was not alone in his shallow ditch of earth. His comrade, Alfred he thinks, stared past him with fixed, unseeing eyes. His cause of death all too obvious in the lack of his lower extremities.

Jacks stomach lurched as he tried to summon the requisite courage to look upon his own body, afraid of what he would find. Lifting his head, the world reeled and spun from this simple effort.

“Whoa, you’re not going anywhere. We’ve only just met,” Jack felt the gentle press of assured hands upon his shoulders, encouraging him to lay low.

“You’re all present and accounted for. I promise,” The owner of the voice met his eyes from beneath a dark fringe of hair; he was struck by how impossibly young she looked. On her cheek he noticed a smear of blood; he wondered if it was his. He raised his hand to her face with the idea to brush it off; it served only to add the mar as his thumb swept mud across the apple of her cheek.

“You’ll turn my head,” She said. It was a line, he knew, but he took comfort in its intended purpose nonetheless.

A surge of renascent fire filled the air and at once he was cradled into the shield of her body. He was afraid he might cry.

“We’ll get you out of here. I promise.” Jack could only believe her.

How strange, he thought, that she should be so far behind the battlements.

***

**England 1918**

“May I?”

Jack startled at the intrusion.

He’d become more relaxed since his arrival, the kind of calming of the soul that only came with being out in nature and clean air, air that did not carry with it the stench of death. But he still had the ability to spook, more often than he would have liked. He had an example to make to his men after all.

Sitting on the bank of the lake, he raised his hand and squinted through parted fingers. From behind, the sun framed his visitor in silhouette.

He’d seen her around the estate, of course; it was hard to miss her. She was an ‘ _honourable_ ’ and therefore stuck out like a sore thumb among the bedraggled, convalescing soldiers currently taking up residence in her ancestral pile. More than once he’d had to reprimand one of his men for their more licentious comments.

He wasn’t much in the mood for company, however, he wasn’t in any position of authority to refuse her a seat on her own land. In invitation, Jack shifted his position a little further along the bench, hoping his silence would sufficiently denote that he was in no mood for idle chat; Jack crossed his arms and stared straight ahead. She didn’t take the hint.

“Miss Fisher,” She offered her hand.

“John Robinson,” Briefly, Jack took the offered hand. In doing so he was afforded the opportunity to take his first look at close quarters. She wore her hair in what he assumed was the latest fashion. She had that air of authority inherent among those who found themselves comfortably circumstanced. In her accent, though, there was a hint of the displaced. Beneath the refined, high elocution he detected something of home.

For long moments they sat in silence by the water’s edge and watched as a flight of swallows took turns to swoop and skim the water’s surface for insects.

“We used to have a beautiful swallow broach.”

Jack turned, expecting a continuation of her remark.

“Oh yeah?” He prompted when no further comment came. She only continued to stare at the broadening circles on the water’s surface.

“Mmm,” Was all she added.

She seemed lost in a sadness. Though he was sure she was no poorer for having misplaced a broach, Jack understood that the value of an item was not commensurate to its monetary worth.

She took a deep breath, Jack got the impression she was steeling herself for something.

“I hear that you and some of your men will be returning home tomorrow. To Australia, Melbourne to be exact,” The words spilled from her in a hurry. Whatever polite etiquette had held her from the asking had broken.

“That’s right.” Jack confirmed.

“From speaking with some of the men, they would have it that you were a policeman before the war. Will you be returning to this profession?”

“That is my intention, yes,” where was she going with this, Jack wondered.

“My sister,” she raised her left hand to reveal a small photograph in her palm. “She was taken.”

Jack reached for the photograph, giving a reassuring smile when she seemed at first unwilling to surrender it.

“May I?” He asked gently. Suddenly she seemed almost childlike in her manner.

“This is the only photograph I have,” she said, by way of explaining her reluctance.

Finally relinquished to his care, Jack lifted the photograph for his appraisal. He saw the two sisters standing side by side; they were more dissimilar than alike in appearance. They both had their arms slung around the other’s shoulders as they beamed for the camera. Jack touched the cheek of the missing girl; the parchment was warm to the touch. The sepia tinted image branded itself indelibly into Jack’s memory.

“I need your help, Mr Robinson,” She paused a moment in her peremptory request before continuing. “When you return home, I need you to reopen the case for my sister?”

Her features were schooled but she held him with her gaze, daring him to refuse her.

Jack had meant to say that it was likely an impossibility, that he had not the authority, nor the jurisdiction, nor the influence. But instead he cautioned:

“I can make no promises, Miss Fisher” Something in his delivery must have countered any weight of authority in his words because she flung herself into his arms in gratitude. Her cheeks flushed when she drew away.

“Thank you, Mr Robinson,” Her smile was broad and mirrored that of her sisters photograph.

“You might as well call me Jack. Everyone else does.”

“Very well, Jack. And you may call me Janey.”

***

**Melbourne 1921**

Not for the first time the spectral of war had sought him out.

A police presence had been requested at the hospital at the customary, brusque request from Doctor MacMillan. She had a patient who needed to make a statement against her husband. The husband; possessed of the erroneous conviction that his wife was a German soldier, had attacked her in their home and had not been seen since.

Jack surveyed the open plan of the ward as instructed by the porter. Row upon row of white linen beds stretched before him and for a moment the solid brick walls seemed to sway like tarp. When pressed, his still susceptible mind could conjure the too familiar words of sacramental grace as if the Padre bestowing the viaticum stood beside him. Most of Jack’s nightmares were restricted to his dreams but on cases like this they had a habit of walking beside him.

From behind him the staccato of an advancing stride pierced the sombre calm and with them the walls became solid once more. Jack’s shoulder was jostled as the owner of the step brushed past him in her hurry. She made no apology.

Reconciled to the task at hand, Jack followed two steps behind her, it seemed they were headed for the same destination. He noted the soft scent of perfume she left in her wake. French perhaps.

Upon his arrival Jack gave a brief nod to Dr MacMillan. Having encountered each other in a professional capacity on a handful of occasions, theirs was a mutual respect for the others practice, if not yet a cordial acquaintance. Dr MacMillan briefly introduced the second woman standing a little apart from her, a Miss Phryne Fisher. In her deportment and style, Jack recognised her instantly as a woman of elevated station. She seemed already abreast of the situation regardless of the fact that they had arrived together. She pitched questions at him that put Jack in mind of an interview with the police commissioner.

Despite the best efforts of all involved, it became clear that the patient was in no condition to give her statement. Her swollen face was a mask of fear and their questions were met with feigned incomprehension. It was with disappointment that Jack made his leave.

On his way to the foyer, Jack recognised the familiar stride behind him once more.

“Are you telling me that’s it, Inspector? She won’t make a statement so that’s it?” Jack stopped abruptly and turned around to respond to his heckler. In doing so, Miss Fisher nearly barrelled into him.

Nose to nose, she held his gaze for just a beat too long before he realised he was yet to respond.

“Miss Fisher,” he took a step back. “I must ask you to leave us to follow up our other enquiries.”

“Other enquir– ” She stopped, exasperated. “She didn’t come by those bruises by her own design,”

Irritated that she would misinterpret him he pressed his point.

“Right now, Miss Fisher, it’s important that any dignity I can afford the victim be given, and that means waiting for _her_ to be ready to give a statement. I will return tomorrow – sooner if I am called to do so. Right now, my hands are tied,” he paused “but yours are not.”

“The law is an ass, Inspector,” She said, deflated.

“Sometimes, yes.”

She looked surprised at his reply. She took a pace back and appraised him through a different lense.

“Well, Inspector, I suppose I must defer to your authority.” Something in the way she said it gave Jack the impression that she would do nothing of the sort.

“Do you have a card, Inspector? I may wish to deliver a parcel.”

***

**Melbourne 1925**

Jack was putting the finishing touches to the latest folder in a mounting pile of paperwork. This was his third consecutive night shift and it was beginning to take its toll.

To facilitate his protesting limbs he eased back in his chair. Five minutes, he thought, he’d give himself five minutes before reapplying himself to the task.

He knew that, technically, he no longer needed to work. A generous endowment meant that he could live comfortably without his modest salary. But, as he argued his stance with increased regularity with Rosie, that wasn’t the man he was. Jack enjoyed his job; though it was harder to reconcile that fact during night shifts. He had no design to rise to the same ranks as Rosie’s father and he certainly had no desire to scale the echelons his bestowed benefit could afford. He had simply been in the right place at the right time, and living off of the largesse of a grateful baron did not suit him in attitude or in practice. It all felt terribly false to him, like he was being asked to play out his life on the wrong instrument.

He knew that his stance aggrieved Rosie, so much so that it had been just over a fortnight since she had re-entered the fold of her family. But he could not be anyone but himself. Not even for her.

The clock on the wall struck midnight and as if on cue the brand new morning was heralded in with a commotion at the front desk. Having ordered his constable home not half an hour before, Jack made his way towards the racket.

Elsie Tizzard announced herself at the reception of City South like she usually did; as if she owned it. Going on the amount of time she frequented its cells, Jack supposed that if it ever went to court, she might be considered to have a beneficial interest in the place.

“Got a stray for ya, Jackie boy,” Elsie lurched towards his approach.

With surprising strength, Elsie’s small frame supported the weight of a semi-conscious, younger woman. “You’ll need to put her up for a bit.”

“This isn’t a hotel, Else!” Jack argued but nevertheless moved swiftly towards Elsie and her encumbrance, conscious that the older woman shouldn’t collapse under the burden. He didn’t need two incapacitated women on the foyer of his station.

A curtain of dark hair partially obscured the woman’s downturned face. She was pale but Jack guessed this to be to some extent her normal pallor. She had a split lip but other than that he could make out no other physical affliction. The smell of alcohol was strong but he supposed this to be more likely permeating from Elsie.

Jacks brisk approach was met with an incoherent protest from the invalid and an attempt to move independently of her helpers. Jack managed to hoist his shoulders under her arm in time to save her the indignity of a fall.

“She’s had a run in with the Sweeny gang. Was doin’ a job for your lot over at North. Some watch they had on her. They left ‘er right there in the shit. The bastards”

“By the looks of it, so did you,” Jack raised his hand to the bruise forming on Elsie’s jaw.

“Nah,” she swatted his hand away, “that ain’t nothin’. We gave ‘em a run for their money dint we, darl?” Elsie craned her neck and beamed at her friend in their shared victory.

“She’s a good girl, Jack,” Elsie, suddenly serious, fixed him with clear eyes. “You take care of her.”

With her burden relinquished into reliable care, Elsie moved swiftly to exit the station. Jacks call for assistance falling on deaf ears.

Heaving a sigh, Jack established a better hold on his charge and manoeuvred her to the nearest chair.

An informant? Jack was aware that City North had acquired outside help in previous cases, it rarely ended well for the informant and on more than one occasion they had ended up in the Yarra.

Acquiring his new charge a glass of water he crouched in front of her to better assay her condition.

He noted that she was not as affluent as her stylish outfit was at pains to suggest. The hemline to her dress had been altered more than once and he would guess that the soles of her shoes had been worn to the preference of someone else’s tread before hers.

Under his scrutiny, she seemed to be rally.

He asked her name and he was surprised that the simple expedient of asking gained the reply requested. He was better used to vulgar parlance than in the truth. He knew it was the truth, who would make up such a name as Phryne?

“Well, Phryne, what on earth did you think you were up to?” It was a question he addressed to himself as much as it was to her.

She smiled.

“Intelligent women do have their uses, inspector.”

***

**Home 1939**

The steely moon lit the bedroom in monochrome; the usual vibrancy of the space was somehow dulled in sympathy. As if it knew that the morning would bring a parting.

Jack sat propped upright against the bedstead. In his fingers he turned the tiny swallow pin. It looked just as it had when he’d first seen it in the jeweller’s window some ten years ago. His ruse that it had been commandeered goods used merely as a beard for the declaration it truly was. Phryne had played along, of course, but she had seen through it.

Little had he realised all those years ago that a simple broach gifted over lemonade toasts would come to symbolise so much to them.

He cast his eyes over the sleeping figure beside him. Phryne was sprawled on her back where she had collapsed in sated exhaustion. Her fingers were still loosely curled around the sheets she had gripped so tightly for purchase not twenty minutes previously.

Somewhere his uniform lay dishevelled on their bedroom floor, a casualty in their haste to feel the others skin before their goodbyes. The threat of reprimand for a less than pristine uniform seemed to Jack a reasonable price to pay.

Phryne had decided that it must go with him this time; the broach.

She’d been insistent. After all, she reasoned that it had always seen her safely home. It had flown with her on glinting wings across the globe and sailed back again on tumultuous seas. Not to mention the countless solo and joint endeavours since. Of all of her vast possessions, it was this and a blue velvet ribbon that she held dearest.

To survive unscathed through one war was lucky, to venture into a second felt a bit like spitting in Gods eye. A talisman felt necessary. And so, after promises to be careful and that danger would not be too readily sought – on both of their parts – she had placed the broach in his palm and closed his fingers around it.

He could have asked her to stay where she was, to keep out of harm’s way. Not to involve herself in the fray. She might even consider it for a moment. But already she was involved. For months, Visa’s, passports and safe passage had been procured for a lucky few. 221b had opened its doors to a number so fluid it was impossible for Jack to recall them all. With a facility for language that still astonished him, Phryne had picked up enough to converse with almost all. It was their stories that spurred them on. It was why Jack once again found himself in uniform.

No, to ask that of Phryne would be to change her, and he would never do that. All he asked was that, where possible, she would give him word of any such undertaking.

Despite their best efforts to remain awake throughout their last night together – an enterprise so far accomplished by more pleasurable means, Jack was torn between waking Phryne – rarely a happy endeavour in any circumstance – and taking advantage of her stillness, to memorize her in rest.

In sleep he could count the peaceful thrum of her pulse. Reaching down, he placed the bowl of his thumb over the notch of delicate skin between her collar bones. It fit perfectly. The swirling thread of his fingerprint an orbit for the familiar constellation of freckles he found there. Where earlier in the evening he had lapped at her glistening skin and felt the thundering race of her pulse, now, on a whim, he placed the broach.

He watched as the little blue swallow pulsed and danced in evidence of life that thrummed under her skin. He would keep it in his breast pocket.

He couldn’t say how long he watched before he noticed the little bird skip and then hasten in its flight.

Lifting his gaze he was met with Phryne’s sleep hooded eyes and a smile that made him homesick for her.

Knowing her as he did, he understood that this was not to be their final goodbye. That somehow she would happen upon his position where he least expected her. He was in equal parts terrified and exultant at the prospect that she would come after him.

The two of them apart were displaced from the same body of water. They would not be kept at a distance for long.


End file.
